Carer’s Lone Night Shift ‘Led To Patient’s Death’

A Stockton care home owner accused of the manslaughter of an elderly mental patient allowed a single carer to look after 18 residents despite being told seven years earlier that two staff should work the night shift, a court has heard.

Pensioner Frank Hutchison died after being given another resident’s medication by care assistant Marion Dixon at the end of a lone 10-and-a-half hour shift, during which she was responsible for medication being given. Both Dixon and home owner Christina Hooper were later charged with manslaughter following the incident in February 2006.

A jury has been told the prosecution was based on gross negligence not an intention to kill. The court heard that Dixon’s husband had died suddenly just weeks earlier but she had returned to work at the Hollies residential care home where she worked night shifts on her own.

Hooper was told by Stockton Borough Council in September 1998 that she should have two members of staff on duty for night shifts, Teesside Crown Court heard.

A letter from the council, which at that time had responsibility for licensing, stated that “night staffing must be brought up to levels” and that it should be implemented within three months of the date of the letter. The care home should have had one member of staff on duty and another on the premises, asleep but on call.

Hooper, 53, of Paul’s Green, Hetton-le-Hole, Tyne and Wear, and Dixon, also 53, of Lumley Road, Billingham, Teesside, have denied manslaughter.

The hearing is expected to last up to four weeks.